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When India and Russia formed an alliance and changed geography, the US had no choice but to balance out the equation.

Agree with the above sentence in the sense the Americans had to do more to help the Paks than previously. 1971 was a watershed moment.

1979 also is a watershed moment. Iran falls and the Soviets enter Afghanistan. Pakistan becomes important. Zbig advises Carter to drop non-proliferation and human rights in exchange for mujahideen to fight the soviets

The chinese are not an American card but co-incidently, both their interests converge in south Asia.

When it comes to enhancing Pakistans war deterrence capability against India, yes.

Both the questions I asked you were actually about the practice of balancing one power against the other(see "balance of power") in geopolitics. I wanted to know how well you understood it. Later I wanted to know whether you had even heard about it.

Fair, so lets examine whether those equations of balance of power still apply today. Try.

After the cold war ends the soviets are less of a threat to the west than earlier. India maintains relations with Russia but importantly there is no longer any Russian objection to getting closer to the west, US in particular. It took Russia twenty years later to talk to the Paks. Now instead of the Russia objection there is the India objection that is the Russians not transfer over tech that will be to India's detriment. Russia is also getting closer to China. But I don't take these two relationships seriously, they are primarily of convenience due to circumstance. For better or worse, the cold war has a long shadow and the people who saw it are still alive. There isn't a weakening of links between India & Russia, it just isn't as busy. Arms deals now and then keep the garden spruced up

If the Afghan war is winding up soon how useful are the Paks to the Americans anymore. Like back in the 80s or 2001 to the recent. To go against Russia now ? no, that is a Pak & Russian interpretation, besides the Paks and Russians wouldn't get close in that case

The point here is the edge between the us-pakistan and russia-india blocs are less sharp or in as high contrast than they used to be. Things are more fuzzy & fluid now.

The US perception of India changes in the 90s to culminate in the nuke deal in 2008. I see this deal as an acknowledgement of US inaction with the Pak nuke program in the 80s. Officially, the Americans assist the Paks in the hopes of putting them off their nuke program as a result of the India test, unofficially they assist & abet in the program. Unsurprisingly, the official attempt fails and then later put nuke speed limits on India to keep the balance. The nuke side of the equation is balanced out. Done.

This leaves everything else. Comprehensive national power of india is increasing compared to Pakistan where if India doesn't slow and/or Pakistan speeds up will mean in fifteen years, it won't matter what Pakistan says. I don't know what China or the US can do for Pakistan at this point. But bilaterally there are certainly things the Paks can do with India to alleviate any concerns

Your contention is the US has to maintain relations with the Paks due to this impending imbalance ? won't matter

Who says relations between the US & Pakistan have to snap. Never happened yet, been more stop-start, feast - famine. The Americans have already provided an out. Its called cooperation. A lesson the Paks would do well to heed if they hope for anything from India in the future.

Can the Paks unilaterally cut off relations with the US? doubt it. That is the posturing from the Pak side. They faced a similar question in '87 where they knew aid was going to get cut off, so they went around the neighbourhood offering their nuke enrichment wares. Been at it for a while

It remains to be seen to what extent the US is posturing too. Right now they seem eager to treat another imbalance in the region that between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghanistan role of being a cross between a staging area and strategic depth got superceded as a meeting ground for undesirables. The objective is to prevent a recurremce

Yes, the soviet collapsed but it is important how you understand this.

The collapse does not reset the game at all. The main reason behind your lengthy musings(are also all over the place) and which reads like an academic paper by a fresh student than a longtime observer is because you think the collapse has changed the basics.

You have a hard time explaining the relationship between the US and Pakistan and the role of the later in this relationship but you are absolutely sure about sometime because you see it at facevalue(Karzai and some official said something to the media, so it must be policy!)

Headlines and op-ed is not policy; it is gossip. How can your theories reconcile when you discount the basics of geopolitics? How do you unilaterally split time into two seperate parts because the headline said that "the cold war had ended"? How am I supposed to entertain you with your ongoing(on and on) musings(which are all over the place) and which reads more like an academic paper by a freshman than an old observer.

If you cannot give respect to the balance of power theory, you cannot understand the relationships between these states and their respective roles.

You have a hard time explaining the relationship between the US and Pakistan and the role of the later in this relationship but you are absolutely sure about sometime because you see it at facevalue(Karzai and some official said something to the media, so it must be policy!)

Lets see what you said paks role is

Pakistan's primary role in the game is being a card for the west that balances out india(its arch enemy). Terrorism control is Pakistan's secondary role(a side job) which it manages to use as a guided terrorism on India(and others in passive mode) under western security umbrella.

See, the primary role you ascribe to Pakistan is what the Paks ascribe to themselves. The Paks see themselves as a counter to India. China as well, am less convinced about the US though.

What role did the Paks play for the west ?
- base for spy missions over the soviet union
- played matchmaker between China & US
- raised an irregular army to fight the soviets
- provided a route to afghanistan & support for GWOT
- anything i missed ?

In none of those roles was Pakistan ever a counter to India was it.

To the Paks great disappointment the US refused to ally with them in '65 and was of no help in '71. Then they went crying to Chou in'65 who fired them for settling too soon. All the Chinese did in '65 was demand India vacate two passes on their side of the border, one we complied the other we refused and that turned into the standoff at nathu la a cuple of years later. China were no help in '71

It seems that whenever the US needed Pakistan say against the soviets they turned a blind eye to anything else the Paks did

I don't take at face value what Karzai said, i take what Trump & Mathis have said at face value. Trump has shown to date that he will do what he says that is until restrained.

In any case the Paks have around four months from now to comply. So its after Feb we will have to see what action if any is taken by the Americans and its extent

How do you unilaterally split time into two seperate parts because the headline said that "the cold war had ended"?

because the Americans aren't our opponent any more ?

Who pushed for the nuke waiver in 2008, who is loosening restrictions with us in arms

The only reason our bid at NSG membership failed was China

Headlines and op-ed is not policy; it is gossip. How can your theories reconcile when you discount the basics of geopolitics?

Explain these basics then

The main reason behind your lengthy musings(are also all over the place) and which reads like an academic paper by a fresh student than a longtime observer is because you think the collapse has changed the basics.

That was my attempt to try and explain. Thinking aloud. If you can do better then go ahead and make it lengthy. Easier to understand that way

You don't see it, do you? When has pressure worked on the Paks? After 9/11, the Paks promised full co-operation. Then we had the Kunduz Airlift and the attack on the Indian parliament. What did those incidents tell you?

Pressure was applied to get Pak's unconditional cooperation. Once obtained everything else they did was considered secondary

Cooperate against the soviets, allowed to develop a nuke program, proliferate it and use out of work militants in Kashmir
Cooperate in GWOT, allowed to harbour militants, OBL included

Question is what price will the Paks extract for unconditional cooperation against sanctuaries ?

They will insist in a say on how the afghan govt is constituted. They need a govt that is dependent on them to feel secure. How do they get that without the Taliban.

Thing is everybody in the region except India is expecting to cut a deal with the Taliban.

You talked about mainstreaming Jihadi organistaions like the LeT. But what are the reasons behind it?

Thinking China. CPEC and militants don't mix

Khawaza Asif says if US gives proof about the Haqqanis, then Pak will act. Pak Army chief Bajwa says Haqqanis have relocated to Afghanistan. Can't you see the correlation?

What correlation do you see ?

This is just grandstanding in public, we don't know what gets said in private

Trying to mainstream the LeT is a Pak mil ploy to tell the US/India that Jihadis are following the constitution (which means kill Shias, Hazaras and continuing terrorism) and they have the right to do so. I am also thinking of the Pak terrorist mentaliy of giving up the Haqqanis in lieu of saving terrorist organisations facing Kashmir. But mind you, LeT has gone global.

I don't exactly understand what happens to these outfits once they get into politics. They have never done well there which is why they use the bullet

Article i posted insisted they be disarmed before, in other words they will have to forswear violence. If not then that will have a corrosive effect on Pak polity

Paks think China will shield them forever and pay their bills. History is proof that such is not the case. Pak will continue with their state policy of terrorism and there is nothing any country, even the US, can do about it. The simple reason is because, in US there are still people in the US administration who get an erection thinking about Pakistan. Donald Trumph alone can't change that.

As a result of Pak support to get China into the UNSC, the Chinese cooperated in their nuke program. Give them many things and asked for nothing.

Pakistan lobby in the US is weaker after OBL was found in Abottabad. Do you really think Congress will stop Trump if he wants to sanction Pakistan ?

Given Trump isn't a fork tongued establishment type, there is a good chance he will follow through with what he says. Unless the Paks can cut a deal, but they will need to pay up, where are those funds coming from.

U.S. national Caitlan Coleman and her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle went missing in Afghanistan in 2012 and the Taliban later claimed responsibility for kidnapping them. The group, which released two videos of the hostages while they were in captivity, had been demanding the release of their prisoners in exchange for Boyle and his wife. She gave birth to the couple's three children while in captivity.

A Pakistani military statement said that based on "actionable intelligence from U.S.," the rescue operation was successfully conduced in the Kurram tribal region near the Afghan border on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump praised the release of the hostages and called the development a "positive moment" in U.S.-Pakistan relations. "The Pakistani government's cooperation is a sign that it is honoring America's wishes for it to do more to provide security in the region," he said in a statement. "We hope to see this type of cooperation and teamwork in helping secure the release of remaining hostages and in our future joint counterterrorism operations."

ADVICE FOR US POLICYMAKERS
The South Asian Vortex
DANIEL MARKEY
Managing Afghanistan and Pakistan will be no picnic as Islamist threats and China loom. India could be a promising partner for the United States, but even it requires skillful handling.

During the post-9/11 era, U.S. policy in South Asia has served as a nearly perfect illustration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s old line, “What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” On the whole, Washington has lavished less attention and fewer resources on India, the most populous nation in the region and the state with the greatest potential to shape global geopolitics over the long run, than on neighboring Pakistan. In turn, U.S. officials have tended to treat Pakistan, with its 200 million people and impossibly frustrating bundle of policy challenges, as an irritating appendage of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. And even to Afghanistan the U.S. government has rarely devoted sufficient or sustained policy focus. The Bush Administration shortchanged it in favor of war in Iraq, and the Obama Administration’s surge was shaped more by U.S. domestic political considerations than by Afghanistan’s own realities or trajectory.

A smarter strategy for South Asia would offer realistic avenues for the United States to maintain a balance of power in favor of American interests—chief among them a liberal world order—over the long haul, not just to neutralize immediate security threats. To its credit, by the time the Obama Administration departed it appeared to appreciate the longstanding imbalance, especially with respect to India. The most that could be said of U.S. efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan, however, is that the Obama Administration bequeathed to its successor a slow-motion train wreck rather than an immediate crisis.

Threats and Opportunities

The upside-down quality to U.S. policy in South Asia owes much to the fact that Washington has based major decisions on threats more than opportunities. President Trump took a similar approach when he unveiled his “South Asia strategy” in a primetime television address on August 21, 2017. His speech was first and foremost a declaration that the United States would not lose in Afghanistan. Then the President waved at Pakistan and India. He threatened the former with the back of his hand, warning that Islamabad had better end its support of Afghan insurgents, or else. He offered a more welcoming gesture to New Delhi, suggesting that India should take a more active role in Afghanistan, especially in promoting economic development.

Trump is not alone in taking an Afghanistan-first approach to the region. Bush and Obama mainly did the same, and it is easy to see why. In Afghanistan, Presidents Bush, Obama, and now Trump have had to consider the realistic possibility of defeat in what now qualifies as America’s longest war. That disastrous political prospect, perhaps more than the potential security threat posed by a reconstituted al-Qaeda (or similar terrorist network), explains a lot about the policy decisions reached by all three Presidents.

In Pakistan too, concerns about imminent threats tend to dominate American policy calculations. Pakistan’s role as a spoiler of regional peace, safe haven for terrorists, and nuclear-armed garrison state has demanded significant attention from U.S. national-security policymakers. Potential opportunities, such as Pakistan’s expanding market for U.S. goods or investments, have generated far less American interest. Even Pakistan’s vast, youthful population looks like a threat—a “youth bulge” that will bring greater volatility, extremism, and violence—rather than an opportunity for higher productivity and growth.

Only in India do opportunities outweigh threats, at least from Washington’s point of view. It is worth pausing to recall that if not for 9/11, India would have eclipsed Pakistan and Afghanistan on America’s strategic agenda. Toward the end of its tenure the Clinton Administration started to appreciate India’s global potential in economic and diplomatic terms. The early Bush Administration appreciated India’s geostrategic heft as an Asian counterbalance to a rising China. By contrast, if not for Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan would have remained a small, landlocked, war-torn tragedy, but not one of great strategic consequence to the United States. Pakistan, buffeted by internal turmoil and addicted to self-destructive hostility with India, would have concerned American policymakers, but wouldn’t have led to expenditures of tens of billions of dollars in military and economic assistance or rekindled efforts at diplomatic and intelligence cooperation, which had largely fallen apart a decade before.

In short, India holds the greatest opportunity for the United States, Pakistan poses the greatest potential security threat, and Afghanistan is where U.S. forces will be stuck in an interminable war unless someone figures out how to exit a no-win investment trap without causing undo political damage at home.

Continuity and Change

For analysts who have followed South Asia over decades, too much about our present condition looks familiar and predictable. Had one fallen asleep in 1997 and woken up twenty years later, a number of assumptions, frameworks, and conclusions would still ring true.

Afghanistan’s war is America’s longest, but even the past 16 years since 9/11 are in many ways only the most recent chapter of a civil war that is about two decades older than the average Afghan alive today. Divisions within Afghan society—rural versus urban, tribe versus tribe, or ethnic group versus ethnic group—continue to stymie national political cooperation, a problem worsened by the corruption and institutional weaknesses of Kabul, and also by a political model imported via Bonn that asks the center to do more than it is able.

Similarly, Pakistan’s present condition, including political disputes between the army and civilian politicians and a culture of abiding hostility toward India, has been constant throughout nearly all of the state’s seventy-year history. The Pakistani state continues, as it has since at least the 1960s, to “do less with more” when it comes to making effective use of national resources in ways that contribute to basic socio-economic wellbeing, whether in terms of education, healthcare, or infrastructure.1 At the same time, it invests heavily in the tools of war, including a growing nuclear weapons program, largely aimed at India. Not even the present instance of mutual U.S.-Pakistan frustration is especially new, as neither side has been satisfied with the other since their first treaty alliance in 1954.

India is still in many ways a slow-moving, parochial behemoth. It is preoccupied with its own domestic dramas in ways that distract it from international action, too riven by domestic politics to implement the sweeping reforms needed to unleash the potential of its own people, and too zealously post-colonial and ambitious to enter binding international alliances.

These important points of South Asian continuity notwithstanding, today’s policy analysts must pay close attention to several changes. These new variables will help determine the region’s demographic, socio-economic, and geopolitical trajectories. By studying them, American policymakers can gain insights into the most effective way for the United States to bring about other changes. In short, Washington will generally find itself on firmer ground when its strategies align with prevailing trends and when it seeks to promote changes in areas where flux has been a more frequent feature of recent history.

The first change to appreciate about South Asia is its demographic reality. In 1997, Afghanistan’s population was 18 million, Pakistan’s 129 million, and India’s 997 million. Today those numbers are roughly 35 million, 193 million, and 1.3 billion, respectively. The region’s cities have undergone the greatest and most rapid change, with Kabul growing from one to four million, Karachi from 10 million to 16 million, and Mumbai from 16 to 21 million since about the turn of the century. And the region’s median age is still only 27 years, meaning that growth rates are unlikely to come down anytime soon. India’s population is projected to outgrow that of China by 2024. The most basic consequence of this growth is that it will make the region’s traditional scarcities—land, water, jobs, healthcare, and so on—even scarcer. Without improved governance, education, and infrastructure (perhaps aided by some breakthrough technologies), South Asia’s young populations will have little chance of competing in the global economy. Politics will also become more contentious and violent.

The second shared reality across the region is that of China’s increasing prominence. Some of this growth can be interpreted as a fairly straight-line projection of longstanding trends. India, for example, fought a disastrous war with China in 1962, and in 1998 justified its surprise nuclear tests by citing the security threat posed by nuclear-armed China. In recent years, India’s suspicion of the China has hardened, especially as both sides have invested in a wide range of military capabilities. Pakistan, for its part, has viewed China as its all-weather-ally since the 1960s, and so Beijing’s continued security cooperation with Islamabad—which has included the sale of sensitive technologies like missiles and nuclear warhead designs—represents a continuation of old patterns. Even in Afghanistan, China has for decades pressed its own limited policy aims, including helping to arm the mujaheddin in the 1980s and buying the massive Aynak copper mine in 2007.

In other ways, however, the ongoing evolution of China’s regional role is more dramatic. Recent India-China standoffs along their disputed borders, maritime spats, and diplomatic differences paint a picture of an increasingly contentious relationship. India fears China’s growing military presence throughout the Indian Ocean, perceives Chinese overtures to neighboring Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan as a part of a strategy of encirclement, and rejects Beijing’s benign characterization of President Xi Jinping’s “Belt and Road Initiatives.” The stakes of this regional relationship have also grown exponentially. Far more than in 1962, a violent conflict between India and China would roil international markets and force other states—including the United States—into the uncomfortable position of having to take sides. Americans are not used to thinking in these terms about India (and may have forgotten how to think in such terms about Korea or Japan), but we may be forced to learn.

China’s role in Pakistan took a great leap forward with the 2015 inauguration of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a package of transportation infrastructure (roads, ports, trains), energy, and other industrial investments that could run into the tens of billions of dollars over the next decade. It is not remotely clear whether these investments will pan out, or even what fraction of China’s promises will be realized, but it is clear that China has decided to get involved in Pakistan in a new, qualitatively different way. It is also clear that Pakistan’s leaders perceive China as a sort of “last chance” foreign patron. Enthusiasm for CPEC is mutual, pervasive, and supported by both states, which launched the endeavor with heavy propaganda and some muzzling of even limited political opposition. Whether CPEC will ultimately help to stabilize Pakistan’s internal situation is an open question. The pathway from infrastructure investments to domestic tranquility is hardly straightforward. Similarly, CPEC (and more generally, China’s support to Pakistan) could cut either way with respect to mitigating or exacerbating Pakistan’s hostile relationship with India.

Finally, China took on an unprecedented new diplomatic role in Afghanistan when it agreed to participate in the “Quadrilateral Coordinating Group” during the latter years of the Obama Administration. That role never produced the Administration’s desired result, namely pressuring Pakistan to deliver recalcitrant factions of the Taliban to the negotiating table. Nevertheless, it marked a breakthrough in China’s willingness to step out of the shadows and take on greater diplomatic responsibility. More to the point it suggested a new reality in South Asia: Looking ahead, the United States will need to take China’s role and interests into account in ways that were unnecessary even just a decade ago.

The other major regional changes are the consequence of specific domestic developments within India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. India may be relatively slow to change, but its economy has picked up steam in ways that will make additional reforms at home possible, and allow it to assume a greater international role as well. India’s economic growth holds great appeal for the United States, but leaves open essential questions about how Americans might best benefit from it. Equally important are changes in India’s national politics, encapsulated in the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which represents not merely the historic collapse of the Indian National Congress Party but the rise of a new and charismatic right-of-center force, willing to part ways with some of the orthodoxy that has characterized Indian politics since independence. In the international context, Modi—like Shinzo Abe in Japan—has distinguished himself by a less moralizing and more muscular tone, especially in his dealings with Pakistan and China.

Pakistan’s most significant domestic change of the past decade is undoubtedly its internal war against Islamist militant groups. Until the mid-2000s, Pakistani leaders generally refused to accept the necessity of serious military campaigns against groups they characterized as mere “miscreants” along the Afghan border. Since 2007, however, the Pakistani army has been engaged in nearly constant battles against homegrown Pakistani Taliban and their sympathizers. Terrorist violence has repeatedly spilled into Pakistan’s major urban centers, and all told, Pakistani officials count over 70,000 lives and more than $100 billion lost since 2001 due to the conflict. Unfortunately, although the current generation of Pakistani soldiers has seen more action against jihadi militants than against India, the state has done precious little to address the socio-economic wellsprings of violent extremism or to curb anti-Indian sentiment in ways that would encourage peace over the long run.

Afghanistan’s situation has also evolved significantly, if not in ways that are yet self-sustaining. Afghans have participated in several national democratic elections and their army of over 180,000 troops now bears the brunt of fighting against Taliban insurgents. Although most Afghans have only known war, a majority cannot now recall a time before the American intervention that routed the Taliban from Kabul.

Nor can they remember a time before cell phones. Afghanistan has experienced a revolution in communications; 75 percent of Afghans have cellular service subscriptions. Afghanistan remains precarious—politically, economically, and militarily—but its troubles should not be interpreted as evidence of pro-Taliban or obscurantist sentiment. Indeed, in 2016, 93 percent of Afghans reported that they would fear encountering the Taliban. Strikingly, 81 percent of Afghans believe men and women should have equal educational opportunities.2

Myths of South Asia

Beyond these changes, policy analysts should also resist the allure of several popular “myths” about South Asia that have become common knowledge but really have little basis in fact. First, although it is fortunate that most American policymakers have dispensed with images of India as a land of cows and snake charmers, it is equally fanciful to believe that India has magically transformed into an enormous Silicon Valley. Yes, India has high-tech Bangalore and glitzy Bollywood, but roughly one in five Indians lives on less than $1.90 per day, and 53 percent of Indian homes lack toilets. The point is not to make light of India’s progress or potential, but only to appreciate its scale and complexity.

Second, it is only a myth that Kashmir is the reason for all of South Asia’s troubles. As a policy corollary, attempting to settle the dispute over Kashmir should not be a top American priority. Kashmir is better understood as a symptom of the broader India-Pakistan conflict. Kashmir is also, to be clear, a bundle of unresolved political disputes between local communities of the former princely states of Jammu and Kashmir and the countries in which they now reside. Hypothetically, one could remove Kashmir from the regional equation without seeing any improvement in relations between Islamabad and New Delhi. All of this is important because Pakistan frequently argues to ill-informed American audiences that the only way to make progress on peace in the region is to resolve the underlying dispute, by which they mean Kashmir. This is a ruse intended to focus U.S. pressure on India and turn attention away from Pakistan’s continued support for terrorists and militant organizations like Lashkar-e-Taiba, whose atrocities routinely threaten to spark Indo-Pakistani war.

Third, earnest supporters of liberal democracy frequently blame Pakistan’s military for its society’s ills. If not for its nefarious army and ISI, they suggest, Pakistan would find its way to peace and prosperity, not to mention better relations with the United States and India. This statement may be plausible on its face, but the truth is not nearly so simple. In reality, the civilian politicians of Pakistan are members of an elite “establishment” that is either thoroughly co-opted by the military or at least rather easily cowed into submission. Yes, there are factions within, and some prominent civilians are true democrats to the core, but none has—or is likely to have in the foreseeable future—sufficient desire or capacity to send the army back to the barracks and impose civilian authority over defense and foreign policy. It is best for American policymakers to deal with Pakistan as it is, to appreciate that a desired democratic transformation will take time to consolidate if it is to happen at all, and to appreciate the limits of U.S. influence over Pakistan’s domestic politics.

Fourth, Afghans are not fighting to break up their country into ethnically pure smaller states. Afghanistan, despite all its internal conflicts, is an actual nation-state, in some ways more so than Pakistan (or the United States, for that matter). Afghans fight to control their state, not to cut it into pieces. Partition is not a serious option, only a magic bullet-style policy proposal that distracts from a far more challenging reality. That said, as already noted in passing, Afghanistan’s geography, diversity, and political differences probably render it a state better ruled through mechanisms of loose federalism than the highly centralized structures enshrined in its current constitution.

U.S. Policy, Real and Recommended

To be fair, in its waning days the Obama Administration attempted to reconfigure its approach to South Asia in ways that would better align U.S. resources—including the time and attention of senior policymakers—with opportunities and interests. This effort yielded broad shifts in policy for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, none of which was fully consummated by January 2017.

President Obama entered the White House in 2009 proclaiming Afghanistan a “war of necessity.” An extended policy review resulted in an 18-month “surge” of force. He reversed the surge in 2012 and announced plans to shift security responsibilities to Afghan forces by 2014. At that point, he declared that only a small embassy protection force would be in place by the end of his term.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the President’s timetables were politically motivated, a point that has been reiterated by his opponents ever since, including by some top officials within the Trump Administration. To the extent that President Obama’s decision to withdraw was justified by conditions on the ground, the relevant question for the President appears to have been whether the security threats posed by Afghanistan in the new era of ISIS justified an extensive U.S. military presence. He and his top advisers judged that they did not.

Yet Obama did not close out the Afghan war on his watch for three main reasons. First, the Taliban were making gains on the battlefield and a complete—or near complete—U.S. departure could lead to even more dramatic reversals, possibly including the collapse of the government in Kabul. Second, unlike the Hamid Karzai government, with which Obama had had an extremely contentious relationship, the new Ashraf Ghani-led government of national unity was a more willing partner that plainly wanted the United States to stay and help its cause. And third, Obama believed that Hillary Clinton would inherit the mess in Afghanistan after him and that she preferred a long-term commitment in support of the Afghan state, if not necessarily any serious expansion of the U.S. war effort.

The Trump Administration has announced plans to increase U.S. forces in Afghanistan, but only by roughly four thousand, taking the total to between 13 and 16 thousand. In addition, U.S. troops are expected to be less restricted in their use of force, as demonstrated in April 2017 when they dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal—a MOAB, successor to the Daisy Cutter—on an underground tunnel complex in eastern Afghanistan. Still, no realistic escalation of the U.S. military effort has any chance of “winning” against a Taliban insurgency that proved its capacity to stand firm even against 100,000 U.S. forces. In a moment of candor not evident in President Trump’s speeches, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson acknowledged that the United States may not win a battlefield victory—adding, however, that neither will the Taliban.

The Trump strategy for Afghanistan is defensible only if the intensification of U.S. military effort is harnessed to severely circumscribed security and political ends. On the security front, the Administration should aim to retain a partnership with the national government in Kabul as a means to achieving the intelligence and access required to attack ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other international terrorist operations inside Afghanistan. On the political front, the U.S. goal should be a ceasefire, and in time, a settlement with the Taliban.

If a U.S. force of under 20,000 can stave off the collapse of the Afghan government without heavy losses, enable effective counterterror operations, and gradually wear down the confidence of the insurgency enough to open talks, the Trump Administration could sustain similar troop levels in Afghanistan indefinitely. Given the realistic alternatives, that outcome would even qualify as a win and a smarter allocation of U.S. resources than either Obama’s initial surge or his planned departure. However, serious Taliban talks cannot happen without a strong diplomatic initiative to complement the military one. That initiative would simultaneously work to identify opportunities within Afghanistan (between the Taliban and Kabul government), and to strengthen the supporting framework from without (by neutralizing potential spoilers like Iran and Pakistan and working with potential guarantors like China). Unfortunately, Secretary Tillerson’s present dismantling of the State Department raises doubts about America’s capacity to lead a robust diplomatic initiative. But that could change.

Returning to Pakistan, the Obama Administration experienced a similar initial surge of enthusiasm followed by stalemate, frustration, and a narrowing of ambition. The Holbrooke-era scheme for transforming the U.S.-Pakistan relationship from a transactional one to something more akin to a genuine partnership led to expenditures of tens of billions of dollars in civilian and military assistance that in retrospect were either too generous or too short-lived to achieve their aims. The Abbottabad raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in May 2011 encapsulated the essential problem, at least from Washington’s point of view: Pakistan was a profoundly untrustworthy ally, and not just with respect to Afghanistan. For several years before the end of Obama’s term, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship ran on fumes. The Administration avoided drama with Islamabad and let the clock run down, again likely assuming that an incoming President Clinton would prefer the flexibility to formulate its own Pakistan policies.

In his first major move regarding Pakistan, President Trump took a harsh stance clearly intended to compel Islamabad to cease its support of militant and terrorist groups like the Haqqani network in Afghanistan. In many ways, this was a shrewd and timely move. Trump is just unpredictable enough that adversaries have to take his coercive threats—even risky ones—seriously. Moreover, U.S. patience for Pakistan’s ties with anti-Afghan, anti-Indian, and anti-Western terrorist groups has run out, so truth-telling by the White House was in order. Without a Pakistani course correction, sooner or later the U.S.-Pakistan relationship would reach a breaking point, even though that rupture would be costly for both sides.

The question now is whether a coercive approach to Pakistan can work. The answer is a qualified yes. Above all, senior members of the Trump national security team must have the nerve to withstand Pakistan’s angry backlash, the unity to avoid being played against one another, and the sensitivity to recalibrate pressure in response to successes (or failures). Given China’s heavy presence and influence in Pakistan, a successful American coercion of Islamabad will also require some coordination with Beijing, otherwise it will be too easy for Pakistan to hide behind the insulating folds of China’s mantle.

All told, this would be an extremely tall order under the best of circumstances. Judging from the general pattern of dysfunction and turmoil within the White House to date, however, there is precious little reason for optimism.

More important than these concerns about the competence of the current White House, the United States has more at stake in Pakistan than just the war in Afghanistan or even the threat posed by Pakistan-based international terrorism. Those urgent threats should not be allowed to entirely overshadow American interests in a nuclear-armed state of Pakistan’s size, especially as Islamabad grows closer to China while failing to reduce its hostility toward India. Though it is not necessarily wrong to try to force a fundamental shift in Pakistan’s behavior, the effort is likely to fail, and that Washington must be prepared to deal with the consequences. Salvaging an unsatisfactory but workable relationship with Islamabad may in time look like a more palatable outcome than adding Pakistan to America’s list of outright adversaries.

The Obama Administration more-or-less held fast to a core strategic vision on India throughout its term. Obama ended his presidency on a high note of personal diplomacy with Prime Minister Modi in spite of their obvious ideological differences. At the top of the list of the Administration’s accomplishments with India is the tightening of defense ties, including military sales and cooperative agreements. These ties are narrowly functional, with the potential to improve defensive capabilities for both India and the United States. However, they also have a grander purpose: to build the foundation for a closer strategic partnership between the world’s largest democratic state and its oldest, and to tip the global balance in favor of liberal order that serves both Washington and New Delhi. To put a finer point on it, when it comes to managing the rise of Chinese power in Asia, both Indians and Americans appreciate the ways in which their national interests converge.

On India, Trump would do well to stay the course. The question is whether his Administration, such as it is or isn’t, and Washington more generally, will have sufficient patience with Indian policy, especially with respect to issues of trade and the global economy. On these matters American and Indian interests are less synchronized and even in outright conflict. Both Trump and Modi have similar inclinations to draw on populist themes, including that of anti-trade protectionism. The confluence of anti-trade sentiment in both countries could be a deadly one if it is permitted to crowd out areas of agreement.

So far, shrewd Indian officials have demonstrated themselves equal to the task of navigating summit diplomacy with the Trump White House, besting even their extremely effective Japanese counterparts. To reciprocate and, more importantly, to keep India on the Administration’s agenda even when other urgent issues threaten, the President will likely need to identify a senior deputy for whom India is a top priority. At different stages of the Obama Administration, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Deputy Secretary of State William Burns effectively played that role.

To succeed in India, the U.S. government will need patience enough to focus on the strategic payoffs inherent in the rise of a powerful—and enormous—Asian democracy. It will need, too, to consider what the private sector is doing to affect the bilateral relationship in ways it need not with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

To succeed in Pakistan, the United States will need to force important changes in the way Islamabad operates. Failing that, it will need to identify the least costly means of managing Pakistan’s destabilizing influence over the long run.

And to succeed in Afghanistan, Washington will need to demonstrate commitment and flexibility sufficient to enable a political settlement minimally acceptable to the United States, Kabul, the bulk of the Taliban insurgency, and Afghanistan’s most influential neighbors.

Finally, all of America’s efforts should take into account the most significant—and likely lasting—change South Asia has witnessed since the end of the Soviet Union. This is not the threat posed by Islamist extremism and violence, but the growing economic, political, and military influence of China.

Trump is not alone in taking an Afghanistan-first approach to the region. Bush and Obama mainly did the same, and it is easy to see why. In Afghanistan, Presidents Bush, Obama, and now Trump have had to consider the realistic possibility of defeat in what now qualifies as America’s longest war. That disastrous political prospect, perhaps more than the potential security threat posed by a reconstituted al-Qaeda (or similar terrorist network), explains a lot about the policy decisions reached by all three Presidents.

In short, India holds the greatest opportunity for the United States, Pakistan poses the greatest potential security threat, and Afghanistan is where U.S. forces will be stuck in an interminable war unless someone figures out how to exit a no-win investment trap without causing undue political damage at home.

Explains why the US is still there. They couldn't figure out a way to get out without causing undue political damage at home.

In other words domestic political considerations. So much for the local conspiracy theories : D

It is a well-known Pakistani and Taliban tactic to show new willingness for talks as the summer fighting season ends to bide time through the winter, when fighting slows down, only to announce new offensives each spring. The US would do well to not fall for this ploy again. Pakistani army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s recent dash to Kabul is an all-too-familiar tactic used to deflect US pressure and fits the pattern of the fight-in-summer, talk-in-winter routine.

The fun only begins after that major non nato ally status gets revoked

Between the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, the US had forked out $35 billion to Pakistan, a major chunk of which went to its army. The gravy train must stop. The time for incentives and appeasement has long passed.

Pakistani intelligence officials say missiles apparently fired by a U.S. drone have struck a militant compound in the Kurram tribal region close to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, killing 20 extremists.

The officials, who agreed to discuss the attack only if not quoted by name because they were not authorized to brief media, said the number of militants present in the compound when the missiles struck showed the site was a main center for Haqqani network militants in the area.

The strike came a day after roadside bombs killed four security troops engaged in a search operation for militants in Kurram.

U.S. CIA Director Mike Pompeo says the United States wants to draw the Taliban into peace talks in Afghanistan, but for that to happen, he says Pakistan must first ensure the militants cannot establish safe havens within its borders.

In a speech on October 19 at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank, Pompeo said for peace talks to move ahead, the Taliban must have no hope of winning on the battlefield in Afghanistan.

But he said that will not happen as long as the militants are able to establish sanctuaries in Pakistan.

The United States "is going to do everything we can, to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table in Afghanistan, with the Taliban having zero hope that they can win this thing on the battlefield," he said. "To do that you cannot have a safe haven in Pakistan."

Seemingly to illustrate his point, Pompeo disclosed for the first time that the Central Intelligence Agency believes a U.S.-Canadian couple kidnapped by Haqqani militants in Afghanistan in 2012 were held in capitivity in Pakistan for five years before being freed last week.

His statement that American Caitlan Coleman and her Canadian husband, Joshua Boyle, were "held for five years inside of Pakistan" contradicted accounts offered by Pakistani officials, who said last week the family was rescued in Pakistan shortly after they crossed over from Afghanistan.

Pompeo's remarks targeting Pakistan reflect U.S. President Donald Trump's new strategy of placing pressure on Islamabad to rid its border area of extremist groups as part of a new push to try to win or end the 16-year U.S. war in Afghanistan.

What would make or break the new US strategy is how persistent it is in not just demanding verifiable evidence that Pakistan is dismantling the HQN, especially in the Kurram agency, but is willing to handover its ringleader Sirajuddin Haqqani. As a rule of thumb, declining to handover such terror lynchpins, on one pretext or the other, usually indicates that Pakistan is unwilling to close that chapter, as has been the case with Jamat-ud-Dawa’s Hafiz Saeed and Jaish-e-Mohammed’s (JeM) Maulana Masood Azhar.

The HQN presence in Kurram agency did not come about overnight. Pakistan has been actively relocating them out of their primary base in the adjacent North Waziristan agency to the adjoining Orakzai and Kurram agencies for almost eight years now. The Kurram agency’s geo-strategic location with its area dubbed the Parrot’s Beak jutting into Afghanistan, had made it prime real estate for the Haqqanis and their handlers. The HQN has been operating out of North Waziristan since the mid-1970s and more so during the current Afghan conflict. The Pakistani planners, however, realised around 2009-2010 that they would eventually have to show to the Americans that they are acting against the Haqqanis in North Waziristan. In preparation for this, both the Haqqanis and their Pakistani patrons sought alternative sanctuaries to which the network would be relocated.

The traditional rift between the Shia Pashtun tribesmen of the Upper Kurram with their Sunni compatriots from Southern Kurram provided an opening for the Taliban – both Afghan and Pakistani variety – around the spring of 2007 to get a toehold in the Lower Kurram ostensibly to back the Sunni tribesmen. The Taliban, including the Haqqanis, sought a thoroughfare through the Shia areas to Afghanistan to carry out insurgent activities. The Shia tribesmen organised a valiant armed resistance to both local and foreign jihadists and beat them back in several battles. The jihadists blockaded the Shia tribesmen of the Upper Kurram by cutting off their main route to Peshawar, i.e., the Thall-Parachinar Road. The Shias negotiated a long, arduous Khost-Gardez-Kabul-Jalalabad route via Afghanistan to reach Peshawar, while the Pakistan army sat on its hands. Additionally, the Shia tribesmen utilised small civilian aircraft flights from Peshawar to Parachinar to get supplies, including medicines. They were thus able to sustain the Taliban onslaught for a good three years and deny the passage to the jihadists. The Pakistan army, through its paramilitary Frontier Corps, blockaded the Afghan routes, while the civil aviation authorities shut down the flights out of Peshawar, bringing the Shia resistance to its knees.

It was in this backdrop that the brothers of HQN’s founder Jalaluddin Haqqani, Ibrahim and Khalil Haqqani who live in the Rawalpindi-Islamabad region, were brought in by Pakistani authorities to arbitrate a settlement between the Shias of Upper Kurram on one hand and the Sunnis of the lower Kurram and Taliban on the other. Pakistan’s then federal interior minister Rehman Malik participated in some of these negotiations, which culminated in an accord in February 2011, lifting the blockade of the Upper Kurram agency. What was not written in the accord was that the Haqqanis got to extract their pound of flesh, i.e., an uninterrupted access, through the Shia areas, to the Durand Line and into Afghanistan. They already had been facilitated to establish safe havens in the Lower Kurram agency. While they were not allowed to settle around major Shia population centers, the towns and villages near the Durand Line were teeming with the Haqqanis’ cadres. In fact, the recent eviction of the medical charity Medicines Sans Frontiers’ (MSF) from Lower Kurram, where they had worked for nearly a decade, suggests that Pakistan is increasingly apprehensive of another US sting operation like the one that deployed vaccination teams to track Osama bin Laden. This is not to suggest that the MSF would ever undertake such a proposition. However, it is also known that they had faced opposition when they attempted to expand their work to central and Upper Kurram.

I wrote a series of articles for the Daily Times, Pakistan from the autumn 2010 onwards, to point out this relocation and rehabilitation of the HQN in Kurram agency. But why is it pertinent to recount all this now? Simply, because Pakistan will do only enough to deflect and reduce US pressure. It always has. From the early days of the present Afghan war, the Pakistani military leadership has capitulated to certain US demands while stubbornly dragging its feet on others. For example, General Pervez Musharraf was willing to handover several al-Qaeda operatives – for a charge, of course – to the US while vehemently denying that Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. Similarly, Pakistan has consistently declined to act against the Taliban and HQN leadership it hosts. Unless the US is willing to tighten screws on Pakistan, beyond what it usually has been doing, chances are that Pakistan will again play to bide time and move the HQN cadres out of Kurram back to the adjacent tribal agencies and keep its leadership safe in large cities and indeed around the federal capital out of the US drones’ reach. The recent pressure forced Pakistan to push some of the HQN and Taliban cadres and foot soldiers from Kurram across the Durand Line where they were easily picked by the American drones. However, not a single HQN leader has been nailed in this recent volley of Predator UAV attacks.

The case of the Canadian Joshua Boyle, American Caitlan Coleman and their children makes an interesting study as well. While the Pakistan military spokesperson bragged about freeing these hostages after a tip-off from the US authorities, details have emerged that the Pakistani military acted only after it was put on notice by the US leadership that should it fail to act, a US Navy SEALs team was ready to raid Pakistan to rescue the hostages in a manner similar to the assault which liquidated Laden. While the Pakistan’s Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor claimed that an encounter had taken place to free the hostages in the tribal area, locals and international publications reported that the so-called rescue was more of a release and took place in the settled area between Kurram agency and the military garrison town of Kohat, which is the home to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Selection Board. The DG ISPR also claimed that the couple was held in Afghanistan for five years after capture. After the diplomatic niceties and messages of thanks from the Trump administration waned, CIA director Mike Pompeo busted the ISPR by openly stating that the couple had been held hostage inside Pakistan for five years. Coleman has also spoken out and has categorically stated, “We were not crossing into Pakistan that day. We had been in Pakistan for more than a year at that point.” While she disputed the US’s claims too, her account corroborates, by and large, what the CIA director has stated. Details of her captivity also mirror the happenings on the ground in North Waziristan and fit same pattern as the accounts of other HQN hostages such as the New York Times correspondent David Rhode. The whole episode goes to show that: Kurram agency and surrounding areas are home to the HQN; Pakistan will dillydally till the moment it does not have choice left; Pakistan is fully aware of the whereabouts of the HQN leadership; and Pakistan can leverage the HQN when it so desires.

The US leadership must therefore, demand not just pushing of the HQN and the Taliban cadres over to the Afghan side but also for Pakistan to handover their leadership. Barring such concrete steps, Pakistan is unlikely to wind up its jihadist project in Afghanistan. While the HQN is but one part of the Afghan problem, its expertise in carrying out complex terrorist attacks inside Afghanistan make it the most ominous one. With the increased training and support function of the US forces in Afghanistan, redeployment of the US air support for the Afghan security forces and a hunt-and-kill role for the CIA, the US is getting its ducks in a row. However, so long as the leadership of the Taliban and its sword arm, i.e., the HQN, enjoys sanctuary in Pakistan, all such efforts might prove futile. An iron fist under the US velvet glove must remain ready to achieve the desired results.

Addressing a gathering at the Vivekananda International Foundation in New Delhi, Ghani said that Kabul will restrict Pakistan's access to central Asia if it is not given access to India through the CPEC project, according to the DNA article.

Washington wants the top three terrorists delivered — Siraj Haqqani, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Hafiz Saeed — all of whom live in Pakistan.

Pak - We have already done more than any other country on earth. We have lost some gazillion billion dollars and some thousands of Abduls. Do not put your failure in Afghanistan on us. We can do no more. This is not terrorism, this is holy Jihad and it is our foreign policy. Include us in NSG. Don't sell drones to India. HR abuses in Kashmir by Indian security forces.

Drones strikes have intensified, so are the attacks on Afghan and its forces by Pak proxies. China is meddling everywhere, but remains unscathed. India has earned the goodwill of the Afghans but is unwilling to put boots on the ground. Meanwhile attacks by Pak based terrorists continue in Kashmir and on the LoC.